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Introduction

Well today we will be going back into our study of Paul’s letter to the Galatians but I wanted to tell you what an encouragement it has been these last two weeks to rediscover some hidden truths concerning the Word of the Lord.

With that in mind, I would ask that you turn with me in your Bible to .

Now I realize that we’ll be ending mid-sentence but as you’ll see the next time we come back to Galatians, there is a reason for that.

Re

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Throughout our study of Pauls letter to the Galatians we’ve encountered many great and wonderful truths.

Just in chapter 3 alone we’ve covered questions that many people ask.

1.

In teaching they were justified by faith in Christ, Paul reminded the

Paul at the very start of this chapter laid the hammer down on the Galatians concerning several different aspects.

In teaching they were justified by faith in Christ, Paul reminded the Galatians that they recieved the Spirit by the hearing of faith.

Galatians that...

That was .

This was Paul’s approach to proclaiming Christ Jesus as being crucified for their sin.

And when they heard this wonderful and profound truth of the cross, they didn’t merely receive it by their own rational thought.

Instead, as we know that Scripture teaches in other places, the drawing of a person into the faith is a Sovereign work.

God in His glory brings redemption to mankind through His supernatural work.

And it is that faith which is supernaturally given to the person which allows them to receive Christ by faith.

a.

They received the Spirit by the hearing of faith -

Paul then moved onto using Abraham as an appeal to an authority.

The Scriptures say that Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

Abraham recieved this righteousness not because of what he did.

He didn’t receive his righteousness because he chose to be faithful or to walk in obedience.

Instead, when God called Abraham out of the land of Ur, Abraham believed God and his obedience to the Lord was a result of his faith.

The faith was there first and that is what caused Abraham to walk in obedience to God’s commands.

Whether it was God calling Abraham to leave the land that he had always known and go to a new land.

Or it was God calling Abraham to do the unthinkable.

God called Abraham to take his son, his only son Isaac up onto the mountain and to sacrifice his son upon an alter.

And without question, this man Abraham didn’t hesitate.

His faith in the Lord produced absolute obedience.

So much so that on that journey up the mountain, where Abraham knew that he had the unthinkable task before him of sacrificing His only son:

That when Isaac asked his father where the Lamb was, Abraham responded by saying that the Lord would provide.

Abraham had a true belief in the Lord and it was that very faith that we find the statement, “Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.”

Paul used that account to reveal to the Galatian Church that they are like Abraham.

To be heirs of the same joy of salvation that he had recieved, they were his heirs by faith.

Paul then moved onto talking about how those who tried to make themselves righteous before the Lord through the Law were under a curse.

We all personally know this to be the case.

We talked about what James tells us.

If a man keeps the whole law but he stumbles in one point of that Law, he is accountable for all of it.

And there’s not a one of us who has ever been able to do anything perfectly.

It is Christ and Christ alone who could live the perfect and righteous life.

All of us no matter how hard we may try, we will fall short.

All of us have sinned and therefore we all fall short of the glory of God.

Long before we ever knew what sin was, we were participating with it.

You know one of my favorite analogies that show that all of us are bound up with a sinful nature is children.

For all of us in this room who have children, we know first-hand that they know how to sin instinctively.

Not to long ago our daughter hope proved this true for us.

We found that someone had been writing on the walls with markers, crayons and pencils and we figured it was hope.

Well when we finally caught her and asked her if she colored on the wall.

It was then that I found out that we have cats who like to draw.

That was seriously Hope’s response.

Now I didn’t need to teach her to lie.

It’s hard-wired into her DNA.

I asked her if she did it and her defensive response was to blame someone else.

Or in her case, blame the cat.

Talk about trying not to laugh while you practice discipline.

So as we looked at , this is what we found.

Each of us as human beings if we try to do things on our own are left without hope because we’re all under a curse.

But Christ redeemed us from the Curse of the Law.

Upon the cross of Calvary, Christ took upon Himself our curse and defeated the curse.

d.

Christ has redeemed them from the curse of the Law, that even

Gentiles could now receive the promise of the Spirit through faith

And He did so that all who believe upon Him shall have eternal life.

So after all of this that Paul has said, he anticipated some of their likely objections.

-

Now this gets us into our text for the day.

Paul figured that after all that he had said to the Galatians, they would want to know why it was that God gave the Law.

objection...

In light of all that Paul had said, what purpose did the Law serve?

What was the relation to the promise given to Abraham?

One of the first things Paul wanted to address is that while the Law is important, it wasn’t what God originally promised.

In fact, Paul says that 430 years prior to the Law being given at Mount Sinai to Moses, God had made a covenant with Abraham.

And this promise included the redemption of a people.

So for today, if I could point out one trait that defines the Lord that you can find in this text I would want you to see the trustworthiness of God.

This text reveals to us that God is faithful and when He gives His Word and makes a covenantal promise, it cannot be broken.

If you would, please turn with me to Genesis chapter 12 and we’ll look at the first 3 verses.

“Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and though shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curses thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”

Now there’s a lot that could be said about those verses there but for the moment, I want to focus on the last portion.

This portion of Scripture is known as the Abrahamic Covenant.

But its part of a larger covenant that God made with mankind known as the Covenant of grace but for the purpose of today, we will only focus on this portion.

The last portion of that text says that all the families of the earth shall be blessed in Abraham.

While on the surface this might seem miniscule, I assure you it is deeply profound.

What is being referenced by the Lord in this passage is a promise of forgiveness and restoration which goes out into the whole world through Abraham.

This promise which took place 430 years prior to the Law being given by God reveals that there will come a time that through Abraham, God will redeem sinners unto Himself.

Yet the irony, is that God still gave the law to His people later on through Moses.

So the question that Paul would be asking them to answer is this, does the Law somehow annul what God stated prior to the Law.

Yet in trying to answer that we need to understand something.

Paul mentions the idea of a covenant.

Sadly in our day and age we have a skewed understanding of a covenant.

When we think in terms of a covenant we think in terms of a human covenant.